Advertisement

Mel Gibson recording’s admissibility in court is murky, legal experts say

Share

An audio recording of Mel Gibson allegedly hurling profanities and making threats to his ex-girlfriend has been generating headlines all week. But there is much debate among legal experts about whether the recording would be allowed in any criminal prosecution of the actor-director.

In the recording released this week by the celebrity news website RadarOnline, the “Lethal Weapon” star is purportedly heard admitting to an assault, telling Russian model and former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva that she “deserved” to be hit.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials are conducting a domestic violence investigation into allegations that Gibson harmed Grigorieva during an alleged confrontation in January.

Advertisement

On Thursday, detectives went to court and obtained the recording, which had been filed under seal as part of a child custody battle between Grigorieva and Gibson.

The recording, which appears to have been made during at least one telephone conversation, has not been authenticated. Neither Gibson nor his representatives have commented on the recording or said whether it is of the star.

The volatile conversation, in which the caller uses derogatory terms for women, seems to have been surreptitiously recorded. Legal experts say that’s where the recording’s admissibility in court becomes murky.

In California, both parties must consent to have a phone conversation recorded. Under normal circumstances, legal experts said, that would make the recording unusable in court, and its recording potentially a crime.

But Dmitry Gorin, a defense attorney and former deputy district attorney, said there are exceptions that allow secret recordings to be used. One, he said, is for victims of violence.

“If she falls in that exception, then [the] recording is, in fact, admissible,” Gorin said.

Advertisement

Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg said Grigorieva would have to prove that her intention at the time of the recording was to eventually assist police — not, say, to sell the audio for profit.

Weisberg compared the alleged Gibson audio to recordings in the Scott Peterson murder trial, in which the Modesto man was recorded without his permission lying about his whereabouts. In that case, the recordings were deemed admissible, Weisberg said, because they were made to assist police.

RadarOnline’s release of the recording — before even law enforcement could review it — has drawn global attention. High-interest cases like this one, Gorin said, put added pressure on detectives to get things right. Even minor procedural errors, he said, have been exposed and amplified in past celebrity cases.

The Sheriff’s Department faced criticism after Gibson’s last brush with the law: his 2006 drunk-driving arrest. In that case, sheriff’s officials decided to withhold from immediate public disclosure a deputy’s description of an anti-Semitic rant by the actor, according to a later investigation.

Gibson was also allowed to leave the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station without giving a required palm print and without signing a statement agreeing to appear in court. A sheriff’s sergeant drove him back to the tow yard where his car was being held.

The treatment was later deemed contrary to department rules by the Office of Independent Review, and an instance of apparent preferential treatment.

Advertisement

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

Advertisement